by Meg Collett
The air swept safely across the plaster, freeing the vines and scattering them into oblivion.
He glanced back at her, grinning, and shot her a thumbs-up.
She couldn’t help but smile back. She gave him a thumbs-up back. At her approval, his smile ratcheted up a few more notches.
He turned back to his work and swept the leaf blower across a larger area, working his way up and down, back and forth. As he progressed along the curved wall, swaths of white plaster were exposed. It was a bit dingy with age, but it looked much brighter without the dead vines. After just a few minutes of work, the lighthouse revealed itself, shining bright, almost as good as new.
If Arie accomplished all the tasks this smoothly, he might just breathe a bit of life back into her crumbling home.
4
A car door slammed out front Friday evening. Violet eased the oven door closed and checked her watch. She had thirty minutes until she needed to check on the macarons she was baking for Maggie.
She noted the temperature inside the oven—macarons were horribly fickle—before hurrying to the front door. Anticipating someone’s arrival was new for her, and the fluttering in her stomach was something else entirely. It took her a moment to identify the feeling as excitement.
Arie was already pulling things from the truck’s toolbox by the time she stepped outside. “Evening,” he said without looking at her. “Sorry I’m late. Hale had me doing some concrete work. Took longer than we thought.”
Violet swiped her fingers across the apron tied around her waist, dotting flour fingerprints across the faded blue material. Staying silent, she watched from the porch as Arie pulled out various tools.
At her lack of response, he glanced up, his eyes landing on the door first, as though he thought she’d gone back inside, before finding her at the edge of the porch, out of the sun, her hand above her eyes to shield them from the light. She’d been inside all day, and she was already getting a headache from the brightness.
A beat too late, she realized she should have said hello.
“Do you mind if I set up some sawhorses out here?”
“As long as you leave room for people to park.”
He processed her words while he took in the empty gravel lot, the deep ruts in the road his truck had barely managed, and the overgrowth making the drive look more like a yard. All signs of disuse. He cocked a brow at her. “This is you making a joke again?”
“You didn’t laugh.”
“You warned me not to yesterday.”
“I’ll practice some more.”
Finally, he grinned, shaking his head. “Probably for the best, Violet.”
She turned away from the light and how he’d said her name. He was still watching her closely. After moving deeper into the shadows, she said, “There isn’t power out here.”
“No problem.” He continued unloading. “I cut most of the wood last night.”
Indeed, he lowered the tailgate, and Violet spotted numerous stacks of wood, all bundled in separate piles based on their various lengths. He used the tarp beneath them to pull them forward, forming a little workstation out of the back of his truck.
He obviously had no intention of dragging out these tasks any longer than needed. With the amount of wood he’d cut, he would probably be done with the birdhouses in just a few days. Of course he wouldn’t want to spend his evenings and weekends out here for months. She should have thought of that sooner. Normal people did normal people things with their normal lives.
She was about to slink back inside, but he said, “You’re probably wondering why I have so much done. It’s because I don’t sleep much at night.”
She froze. She glanced back at him, but he was unloading wood and organizing the pieces into the first birdhouse. He hadn’t turned back toward her, though his words were a confession of sorts, private words not to be casually tossed over a shoulder. She glanced around her, unsure what to do.
These sort of social situations tripped her up. Her cheeks burned and she wanted to ask, she wanted nothing more than to understand Arie, but the words were lost somewhere in the maze of her mind. She was chewing on her lip, near tears, when Arie saved her the pain.
“Nightmares,” he said. “You know those half-awake dreams where you stumble over something or step off an edge and your whole body jerks? My dreams are similar, but I don’t wake up after them, and my body jerks because the ground is exploding and my eyes and mouth are full of dirt and blood. I smell that special scent of earth blown apart by fire after a bomb goes off, and I’m back in Iraq, waking up and seeing only smoke, and my leg feels like I’m knee-deep in hot coals. When I wake up, I have to shove back the covers and look at my stump to convince myself I’m not laying in a pool of blood and bone.” Arie paused, and with his back still turned to her, he shrugged, mostly for his benefit. “Anyway, sleep isn’t very restful, so I’ve given up on it.”
He hammered small finishing nails into the pieces, building a tiny house.
“How many times were you deployed?” she asked, the words easier now.
“Twice to Afghanistan. I was in Iraq for a third deployment. We were sweeping for IEDs with an EOD when one blew nearby. If I had been a few steps closer, it would have taken both of my legs. Had to medically retire after that.” He kept working, his eyes on the pieces of wood in front of him. “Feels like too much and not enough at the same time.”
She didn’t want to keep pressing him, but he was opening up to her, and frankly, she hadn’t had many people to talk to lately besides Maggie and Gregory.
“How young were you when you joined?”
He tacked on a piece for the roof. “Eighteen. Got my GED to finish high school early and packed out.”
“You didn’t go to college?”
“Waste of time. Did you?” The words were a challenge he fired off as he looked up from the birdhouse. In her desperation to talk to someone, she might have pushed too far with her questions.
“No,” she said. “High school was hard enough to get through because of the way I look. I got my degree online.”
His eyes went to her hair then back to her face, surely assessing her eyes. After a moment, he said, “My grandmother wanted me to go to college. I had some scholarships, but not enough to cover tuition. No one else in my family has gone, but in my head, I thought I’d be wasting four years instead of making money for the family. She begged me not to go, but I did anyway because I thought I knew best. When I joined the Marines, she didn’t talk to me much. I guess it was too hard for her. During my first tour in Afghanistan, she passed away in her sleep.”
Violet sucked in her cheeks, considering what she should say. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“After all of it,” he said, his eyes back on the birdhouse, “I think about letting her down the most.”
She hadn’t heard a hint of emotion in his voice as he spoke of his deployments or losing his leg, but his voice turned raspy with it when he spoke of his grandmother. Carefully, she asked, “What if you enrolled now?”
He attached the roof’s second piece, turning his back to her but not enough for her to miss him clenching his jaw. “I missed my chance.”
“But did you? Do you have any other siblings?”
“Two sisters who didn’t finish high school.”
“Then you would still be the first in your family. She would know. Somehow, she would.”
The hammer paused in the air. He glanced back at her. “You believe in that?”
For anyone else, Violet wouldn’t answer with her truth, but Arie had been the one who’d spent the entire summer smiling at her and asking about her day. He’d searched her out in a crowd and had never flinched away when he found her staring back. For that, he’d earned her trust.
“I believe my parents left something behind. Sometimes, I feel it in this house. If the wind isn’t blowing off the ocean too loudly, and with the bluffs as a barricade against the world, I feel them here. They can’t be gone comple
tely. Not really. Your grandmother would know, Arie.”
His gaze shifted over her shoulder, his expression faraway. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and for a second, he looked as though he might say something else. But then he resumed his work, and his voice sounded guarded. “I tried out a few designs last night, but I think this one will work best. It’s simple and quick but sturdy. The wood is treated so it won’t rot or fall apart after a few years.”
If they’d been freely giving away secrets before, the time had passed now. She sensed the walls he’d pulled up in front of her, blocking her from seeing him too closely. She understood.
“Did you have to buy the wood?”
“Nope. Hale let me have the scraps from the job we’re working on. Some of the sub-contractors miscut some stuff.”
“And the nails?”
He sighed and looked up at her. The first birdhouse was taking shape beneath his hands. “Did you forget I’m paying you back?”
“Wouldn’t a nail gun be quicker?” she redirected.
He turned back to his work. “Don’t like the sound.”
A second later, it registered why: the sharp blast of air the gun emitted, like a real gun. It was another tiny secret, another drop in the well. She didn’t respond, and her lack of words was answer enough that she understood what he’d meant.
They were silent for so long that, when he spoke again, she jumped.
“Hale asked if you were coming tomorrow. Kyra wanted him to check.”
Instantly, Violet knew what Arie meant. She’d gotten the invitation in the mail two weeks ago—to Kyra’s baby shower. A personal note had accompanied it, handwritten from Kyra in a looping, pretty script. She’d asked Violet to come and said they were keeping it small. The note also mentioned Stevie wanted to see her too, which explained why Violet had been invited at all. She didn’t know Kyra that well, but had gotten somewhat close to Stevie over the summer. Kyra had given a handful of specific details, like the times she thought people would arrive and leave, and what they were eating and when. She’d spelled it all out, almost as if she knew the details of such a social event were important to Violet.
They were extremely important.
A long time had passed since his question, but Arie didn’t mind. He kept working. One small house-like bird abode sat to the side, ready to be put up.
Violet cleared her throat. “I’m helping Maggie by decorating the cake and baking some other sweets. In fact, I’m doing the macarons now,” she added, giving a secret back to him.
She was also a little proud. Her macarons were amazing. Her mother had learned the recipe from a French chef in Paris.
“Aren’t those a nut?”
She squished up her face in horror. “Not at all.”
His shoulders rocked gently from holding back his laughter. “Oh, okay.”
“I’m going into town later tonight to decorate the cake for tomorrow. Maggie has me do all the detail work.”
He hammered in another nail. “You mean you don’t just slap some icing on it?”
She couldn’t tell if he was joking. “It’s fondant. I build tiny flowers and cut out lace and a ton of other things to put on it.”
“Can you eat it?”
“Of course you can. Have you never seen a cake?”
His shoulders quaked again. “Not that kind, I guess. I’ve only tried the ones you buy at stores.”
“Maggie’s cakes are the best.”
“I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. So, you’re coming?”
“I’ll be up really late finishing things tonight at the bakery.”
“That’s a no, then?”
“I might be too tired.”
Arie sat another finished birdhouse next to the first one. They looked so plain, Violet thought. She might need to paint them so the birds were happy with their new homes. “I feel you.”
Violet scrunched up her nose at his words. People were so weird. “I have to check on my macarons.”
“I’m available to test them. You know, just in case you’re worried you messed them up or something.”
She shot him a dirty look. “I don’t mess them up.”
She trooped back inside, leaving the front door open so she could hear him from the kitchen. After checking the temperature, she cracked the oven door open just enough to look inside. They all looked completely perfect, not messed up at all. She was about to close the door when her eyes landed on one that was a little bent and slightly less perfect than the others. With a glance over her shoulder, as if her grandmother was there to slap her wrist, she stuck her hand inside the oven and carefully pulled out the damaged one.
She put it on a little napkin and let it cool before she took it out to Arie.
5
The bike’s old pedals squeaked through layers of bent rust with every crank. Violet had to keep a tight grip on the worn rubber handles. Even with its bent front wheel, she appreciated the bike because it got her through town faster than walking and it forced her to keep her attention on the possible obstacles she might crash into instead of the people who tended to stop and stare as she squeaked and swerved by.
Since it was Friday night and nearly midnight, there was more staring than she’d hoped for.
She kept her head down, grateful most of her hair was bundled beneath a scarf. Didn’t these people have anything better to do than mill around bars all hours of the night? Canaan wasn’t a party town by any stretch of the imagination—thank goodness—but the handful of bars on Main Street did cater to tourists looking for a fun night after a long day at the beach. Since summer was over and all the rental property rates were good, business was booming at Spanky Frank’s and Joe’s Ale House.
Violet would have taken the back roads if there had been any to take. The only road through town was the one road, and she was on it, passing by everyone on the street as music spilled out beneath the moonlight, the air thick with laughter and brine.
She noted Cade Cooper’s white truck parked in front of the local florist’s shop, where his apartment was located above. The lights were on, and she wondered if Stevie was spending the night. Part of her missed the loud-mouthed redhead. Violet had grown accustomed to having Stevie around every day, pestering Violet for more meat on her sandwiches when Violet was working the catering line at the reality show.
Just a few miles away, Kyra’s newly renovated house sat next to Stevie’s on Gardenia Street—a historical part of the island lined with beachfront Victorians, all painted in bright colors, and Magnolia trees as old as the homes.
This was what Violet loved about Canaan: the interconnectedness of it all. How you couldn’t see one car on the street without thinking of someone else or someplace else or something that had happened. And for once, Violet was part of the circle. In some tiny way, she was connected to Stevie and Kyra and the Cooper brothers. And Arie. She had an invitation propped upright on her bedside table to prove it.
She’d been invited into the inner circle. They wanted her there. Before he left today, Arie had asked again if she was going to the shower and mentioned he hoped to see her there—as well as her macarons, which he’d thoroughly enjoyed after she’d snuck him a few extra.
There, just a couple blocks from the florist, was Maggie’s Sweets. The little bakery had a pink- and white-striped awning out front and big glass windows. Violet often helped Maggie keep a fresh array of goods steaming up the glass to entice people inside. It worked well enough that the window display had to be restocked a couple times a day.
Tonight, the lights were off and the front door was locked up. Violet squeaked and swerved down the narrow alley between the bakery and the grocery store with the roll-up garage doors in front. It was her favorite place to buy local Georgia peaches; they were so ripe the juices dribbled down her chin and her back teeth ached from the sweetness.
She propped her bike against the grocery store wall and entered the bakery through the side door, her key ring jangling in her hand. She hit the overhe
ad lights. The space had high ceilings and black-piped industrial lights, and the kitchen was along the back wall, behind a set of counters and displays, giving the place an open-plan feeling. A seating area up front contained old leather couches and a butcher-block coffee table full of magazines and newspapers. People enjoyed coming inside and chatting for a while, letting the breeze wash in through the open front door as they savored the scents of Maggie’s freshly baked lemon drop cookies.
Violet locked the door behind her and angled straight to the walk-in freezer off the back of the kitchen. Inside, she found the cake for Kyra’s baby shower tomorrow. The layers—baked earlier today by Maggie—were ready for Violet to piece together with icing, cover in fondant, and decorate.
Kyra and Hale didn’t know the gender of the baby yet. The plan was for them to cut into the cake and discover the secret. Blue, blueberry-flavored cake for a boy, or pink, strawberry-flavored for a girl.
It was pink.
Violet smiled as she toted the cake out onto the kitchen counter. With the cake laid out, she used the vintage turntable to play some music. Luckily, she and Maggie had the same taste. The Beatles rolled out as she grabbed plastic bag pipers, balls of white fondant, tiny scalpels for detail work, sugar glue, glitter dust, and cutouts to guide her through the lace work. She hummed as she labored over the dessert, happy to play a part, to be in the circle.
Even if it was the outermost rim.
* * *
Saturday morning rolled around, and Violet coaxed herself into consciousness. She still wore her clothes from last night, though they were covered in dried sugar glue and flour, and her fingers were stained pink, her joints aching from decorating into the wee morning hours. The ride back home had been a blur of dark streets and winding roads, but she’d arrived safely and face-planted into bed.
She stumbled first into the shower, hoping the scalding water would make her feel a bit more human, or a bit less like a sugarcoated, pipette-wielding monkey.
